I love the technology and suspension travel they adopted since the 70's but you got to be over six feet tall to ride one. Not everyone wants to jump over 300 school buses though, JEESH!!!! 

I miss trail riding and cutting up in the woods, have tried two dual sport bikes this past decade and got rid of them before they hurt me, these old bones don't take the abuse they did forty years ago. I'm 5'9" and can barely touch the ground with my tip toes on these bikes today, scary stuff. The days of putting a foot down and flat tracking around a corner are over for me, my feet don't reach, old school don't work on these bikes.

They make lowering kits...... here is a site.


http://www.mxsouth.com/devol/devol-racing-linkage-lowering-kits-lowering-links.htm

C'mon flatlander, suck it up! I'm 5'9" and ride a CRF230F chasing my grandson around! I have a 28 inseam. Faster motorcycles, older whiskey and younger Women!!!

I agree with ya Flatlander, i recently had a V-Strom1000, if i came on traffic lights it didn't really matter which colour they were, I was coming thru cos my legs wouldn't reach the ground to stop. I tried lowering kits but they just threw out the handling of the bike. when I took it off road it was worse, to get off the bike i had to find a rock or else just burn the back wheel into the mud to lower it.

So I'm a whimp, just got spoiled from the old bikes and can't apply how I rode then to these newer bikes. Lord knows I tried hard, I was scared of falling over sitting at a traffic light and getting runned over by a dump truck. lol
Pic of a Bultaco Pursang like I had in the seventys, Honda XR650L bought 2005 and Kawasaki KLX 250 I tried again a year later hoping it would work for me.......

Hard to tell from the pics but I swear the Bultaco was a foot shorter than the others............... or ...................... maybe I just shranked up some. lol

You guys are wimps and showing your age. My Daughter 5'4" tall 120lbs races dirt has a kawi 250 (08) 4 stroke, 1st place Women's in ohio I Taught her to ride it, she starts it leaning over cause she can't touch the ground,in the beginning I had 4x4 blocks under her feet at the start line.When she goes down she holds onto the clutch so it wouldn't stall cause she's to short to kick it and hold the bike upright...lol
  Oh and she rides a Harley Super Glide with a 95 inch kit. got her MC license at 15 and half.....I still ride my 70's 500 suzuki on/off (Forget the term) road Bike it's about the same height as the newer ones only a lot heavier. I can throw her in the back of the picem up mine you need a crane...lol

 My first road legal bike when I was 16 was a kawasaki ke 125 trials and sinec then I have never been able to reach the ground on a traillie! Ah! look back in the day full of innocence  

Cool, congrats Dad 1st place Women's in ohio, thats a neat Kawasaki, would be worth some bucks today. My 1st road bike was a new 1966 Honda 90 scrambler, 2nd was a 305 scrambler, seen one sell for $10000.00 a year ago.

Anyways this was the last sub topic with no entrys, so now it's alive. lol

Forgot to tell ya Flatlander, the Grandson is 7 years old and his bike is a KLX110... He looses me on the Honda... When I started him on the bike last year (his first one) I had to hold it up till he got going. He couldn't reach the ground!

He will do fine, when you learn on a new bike you ride like it is natural, kinda like going from a Bi-Wing WW I plane to an F-16 overnight. Old habits are hard to break, feet on the pegs, feet on the pegs, feet on the pegs. lol.......... I loved riding the dual sports on the road knowing I could jump curbs, go through ditches and do what ever it took to avoid an accident with a higher percentage rate of success then on a regular bike.

I agree with you on that.  It has been 20 years since I have riden a dirt bike.  A couple months back when I went to the Int'l Motorcycle Show I couldn't believe how high them things were.  I couldn't even figure out how I would even get going...Maybe lay the bike down, put my leg over and then do a donut till it came up???

I got horses that are easier to get on them some of them new dirt bikes. And at least the horse can stand on its own while you get on.

I have been told they got taller to reduce ankle injuries, which does make sense but a duel sport doesnt need to be THAT tall. In my opinion if Im riding a duel sport I should be able to be able to put atleast one foot flat on the ground at a stop without having to lean the machine

They got taller to increase the suspension travel to improve performance and ground clearance to handle jumps and rough terrain.

Twelve inches of clearance and shock travel is typical today, almost twice what it was in the sixty's and seventy's.

The theory is to keep the tires in contact with the ground longer, every second a tire spends off the ground you are slowing down from no traction.

Everyone should try a seat of the new ones. the first compression is soft and drops fairly easy. Shock rate is fast stacking and fair quick rebound. Ride is smooth. I have seen several little guys step on peg while starting the rollby letting clutch out and hall a$$. After on weight drops to tip toe stop. My 230 lbs dropped the 250 down to ball of foot stop. My legs just wore out way to soon for the fun I was having. Power of new bikes is kikkin fun...

Lucky,
The visual image of you(someone) doing donuts til you could stand got me laughing too hard to type!!!!!!!

I think it is tall because of the Motorcycle Dirt Tires are very wide and very much tall for your vehicle. I hope that things will be okay when you have fixed that out.

Here's a suggestion regarding too tall Dual Sports.
I'm pretty short (5'4"-28" inseam). A few years ago I bought a Kawasaki Super Sherpa so I could do some Dual Sport riding. It's only a 250 but it goes everywhere I want to go and even some I shouldn't have. Yamaha also make the XT250 but it's only a 5 speed.
I ride with friends who ride larger D/S rides and I lead all of the rides, not by choice, but because they want me to. You don't have to have a big, overweight, handful of throttle monster to have fun, believe me!
Kawasaki still makes the Sherpa, but I don't believe they still bring it into the states. I believe they want to sell the KLX250 (too tall, too expensive and too complicated) a bad decision if it's true.
Check out the Super Sherpa on yahoo groups if you want to know more.

Eat extree on Thanksgiving you'll mash down that suspension!